Sunday, March 23, 2014

It took 7,449 days, but the Washington Capitals finally won
their second game at SAP Center in San Jose.The Caps parlayed two own-goals off San Jose Sharks and a pair of scores
in the trick shot competition into a 3-2 win over the Sharks for their first
win in San Jose since October 30, 1993.

The odd proceedings got off and running mid-way through the
first period on a goal that the official scorer could not settle on in terms of
to whom it would be credited.The play
started in the San Jose end when Eric Fehr stripped Logan Couture of the puck
at the right wing wall.Jason Chimera
beat Couture to the loose puck and skated it into the corner where he tried to
send a pass in front to Joel Ward.The
puck skidded instead to Eric Fehr who snapped a shot at goalie Antti Niemi.The shot was muffled in front.Justin Braun tried to clear the puck back up
the left side, but as he was doing so teammate Matt Nieto skated into the path
of his clearing attempt.The puck struck
Nieto and found its way into the back of the net to give the Caps a 1-0 lead
11:25 into the game. The goal was credited to Fehr, then to Joel Ward, and back to Fehr again.

That would have been a great way to go into the first
intermission.It would have been, but
then again, these are the Caps.With 15
seconds left in the period, a lot of things went wrong for the Caps in, well,
less than 15 seconds.It started when
Jack Hillen could not settle a bouncing puck outside the Caps’ blue line.It gave Matt Nieto a chance to get a step on
Hillen, but Nieto could not control the puck, either.He did manage to swat it into the corner to
goalie Braden Holtby’s right.Mike Green
went to retrieve the puck having to do nothing more than send an indirect pass
off the end boards to Hillen on the other side of the net below the goal
line.

Green’s backhand attempt was weak, though, and it was picked
off by Nieto before reaching Hillen.Nieto skated out from behind the Capitals’ cage and took two whacks at
the puck.Holtby defended both but could
not cover the puck.The puck squirted
free, and when Green chose to defend Logan Couture cruising through the slot
looking for a rebound, he left Patrick Marleau free at the top of the
crease.The puck found its way to
Marleau, and before Troy Brouwer could tie him up, Marleau flipped the puck
into the open side of the net to tie the game with 5.9 seconds left in the
period.

After a scoreless second period, the Caps conjured up the
ghosts of games lost in this building.Jason Chimera tried to send the puck to the Sharks’ net.His attempt hit the shin pads of James
Sheppard and rebounded out into the neutral zone.Sheppard collected the puck and steamed in on
a breakaway.Sheppard hinted briefly at
a backhand aimed over Holtby’s glove, but when Holtby bit, the ruse was
revealed.Sheppard slid the puck between
Holtby’s pads along the ice, and the Sharks had a 2-1 lead five minutes into
the period.

Then it was time for the hockey gods to make some
restitution for years of misfortune for the Caps.Twelve minutes into the period Tom Wilson
skated the puck down the right wing wall into the Sharks’ zone. He was stood up
inside the line by defenseman Scott Hannan, who turned to collect the puck in
the corner.Wilson followed up on the
play and caught Hannan behind the net, separating him from the puck.The puck slid away onto the stick of Dustin Penner,
who wasted no time sending the puck in front to Chris Brown.From the edge of the left wing circle Brown
wristed the puck at the San Jose net.The puck was deflected off the leg of Matt Nieto, then off the jersey of
Dan Boyle and past Niemi to knot the score at two apiece.

That would be how regulation ended.After a scoreless overtime in which the Caps
outshot the Sharks, 5-0, it went to the freestyle competition.Evgeny Kuznetsov led things off for the Caps
and beat Niemi on a shot that looked almost identical to the one on which he
beat Jonathan Quick on Thursday, low over the right pad.Patrick Marleau tied it up in the top of the
third, leaving it up to Nicklas Backstrom.Skating toward the Shark’s net in an agonizingly slow manner, Backstrom
faked Niemi to his knees, then flipped a backhand over his glove to give the
Caps a win more than 20 years in the making, 3-2.

Other stuff…

-- The Caps seem finally to have discovered defense.The two goals allowed to San Jose made it nine
straight games in which the Caps allowed three or fewer goals.Considering the competition, allowing 2.22
goals per game over that stretch is rather remarkable.

-- On the other side, the two goals scored made it seven
times in those nine games that the Caps scored three or fewer goals.Scoring 2.11 goals per game over that span
(and being shut out twice) is why the Caps are 5-3-1 in those games.

-- From the official scorer follies file, see if you can
figure out what is wrong in this picture (click on it for a larger image)…

-- Chris Brown became the 26th Capital to record
a goal this season.That is the most to
record a goal with the club since they had 28 skaters get goals in the
2010-2011 season.Brown is the sixth Cap
this season to record his first NHL regular season goal.The others are: Julien Brouillette, Michael
Latta, Connor Carrick, Nate Schmidt, and Tom Wilson.

-- The Caps were routed in the faceoff circle, losing 45 of
65 draws (30.8 winning percentage).They
were 5-for-21 in the offensive zone (23.8 percent).Troy Brouwer was the only Capital to reach
the 40 percent winning mark, going 2-for-5 (40 percent).

-- If there was something unusual about this game…ok, if
there was something else unusual about this game, it was not that the Sharks
out-shot the Caps, 36-25, but rather that the Caps finished virtually even in
shot attempts, San Jose registering 61 shot attempts and the Caps finishing
with 59.

-- The Caps did allow 11 shots on goal in six minutes of
penalty killing time.Braden Holtby
turned all of them away, including all four on a late power play in the third
period that could have sealed the deal for the Sharks and kept the Caps’
winless streak in San Jose alive.

-- Speaking of penalty kill, skating off three of three
shorthanded situations makes the Caps a perfect 19-for-19 over their last six
games.

-- That Ovechkin-Beagle-Johansson line?It had five shots on goal.Alex Ovechkin had five shots on goal.The line had ten shot attempts.Ovechkin had eight shot attempts.Does anyone really think this is a good
idea?I mean, other than gentlemen in
suits standing behind the Capitals’ bench.

-- Nicklas Backstrom’s star turn in the Gimmick tied him
with Alex Ovechkin for the most appearances in the trick shot competition this
season (15).Ovechkin sat this one out,
only his second absence from the white carpet in 17 freestyle competitions this
season for the Caps and his first when healthy (he was injured in the Caps’ 3-2
Gimmick win against Florida on November 2nd).

-- Justin Braun had one of the stranger lines on a score
sheet you will see for the Sharks.In
almost 20 minutes he had five blocked shots.That’s it.No shots, no shot
attempts, no penalties, no hits, no turnovers, nothing.Just five blocked shots.

-- The Caps could almost count this as a win,
possession-wise.In 5-on-5 close score
situations the Caps had Corsi-for/Fenwick-for percentages of 49.4/45.3.In all even strength situations the numbers
were 52.0/48.5.

In the end…

Five of six points in California.Here is how rarely that has happened in
Capitals history…

Never.

In no three-game trip to California have the Caps ever won
five of six available points.Chances
are that not even the most red-rocked Capitals fan thought this would be the
year in which it would happen.Three of
six points, taken on its own merits without the baggage of the Capitals’
precarious playoff situation, would have been viewed as a success.

Even with the successful western road trip the Caps find
themselves jetting back across the country a tiebreaker out of a playoff spot,
and the team with which they are tied (Detroit) has two games in hand.The schedule does not get easier with
games against Los Angeles and Boston on the home slate this week, either.

Of immediate concern is Jaroslav Halak’s health (he was a
game-day scratch against the Sharks with a lower body injury) and “What’s My
Line?” with Alex Ovechkin.However, what
the Caps have done better is win one-goal games, going 4-1-1 in such decisions
over their last eight games.Playing
close games and succeeding might serve them well down the stretch.

It had better.The
schedule will not be kind to them.Of
the eight teams in front of them in the Eastern Conference, four of them within
four points of the Caps, Washington plays only Tampa Bay down the stretch, and
they do not face the Lightning until the season finale.The Caps will need help as they head for the
season’s finish line, but unless they help themselves to more wins, it won’t
matter.But this win does feel good.

1 comment:

glvsv37
said...

So the Caps get their second win in San Jose... About damn time considering it was a kid in high school lamenting the Shark's first loss way back then that secured the hockey noose around my neck. Almost better than a playoff series win!

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The Washington Capitals ended the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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